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[ST] Battery and charging question



Let's say, hypothetically, that for a variety of reasons you'd
gotten out of the habit of riding much and your bike tended to
sit for a few weeks between rides.  Let's say that you were
also a lazy slug and didn't put the (less than a year old)
battery on a tender.  I don't know anyone like that, of course,
but I'll pretend.

So the bike starts, but just a hair slowly, and runs just fine.
Odds are that was the last start in it, or very close thereto.

How long would the bike have to be ridden in order to charge
it enough to start again?

Could you put a voltmeter on the battery and figure out if it
had sufficient juice to start?  If so, about where would the
threshold be?


What actually happened:  the bike sat for a few weeks.  I rode
it to work (~20 minutes) after it started a bit slowly.  When I
left the office it started just fine, but still a hair slowly.
I rode it home (~35 minutes... bay bridge traffic sucked) and 
stopped for gas a few blocks from my house.  When I attempted
to start the bike at the gas station, no dice.

I grabbed the battery and took it home to put it on a charger,
but checked the voltage just before I did-- just under 12.2V.

I'll put a meter on the bike after I go back and see what the
charging system is doing, but I would have thought that a 
half-hour ride would have given it enough juice for at least 
a start.  Am I wrong, or should I start looking suspiciously 
at the charging system?

-Patti
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